More Laos - French

Catch up time. We've been a little behind on getting our posts done lately, so the next few are from previous travel adventures.

Laos was fantastic. We didn't originally intend to go there, but we fell in love immediately when we arrived. It may have been that the country has not been traveled as much as Thailand (which means less scams and pickpockets), but it is also a beautiful place with very friendly people.

Previously a colony of France, Laos still has lots of French influences. In Vientiane, the capital city of Laos, we found some fantastic pastries and coffee. We also had a very nice French dinner and even got to practice speaking Francais once or twice with some locals. They even have an Arc d'Triomphe and some other French style architecture - with some Laos influence.


Luang Prabang was one of the more modern cities that we visited in Laos, and it was amazing. The hotel we stayed in was across the street from a wat/monastary, so we saw monks coming and going all day. Sitting on our deck was incredible, because we could sometimes hear them chanting and praying. Except for the wake up bell which was rung at 3 am, we really enjoyed staying in such proximity to the temple.




Technically speaking, it wasn't that "modern" really. During the few days that we stayed there, the electricity regularly went out, somewhat inexplicably. The first night that it happened, it was raining so we thought it may have been caused by the storm. The next time it happened, it was totally clear and there was no apparent reason for the outage. The locals acted like it was normal, so we just went about our business of shopping and getting dinner. Although the loss of electricity was a regular evening event, the return of flickering light was greeted with applause every time.